ill fated spring
by Constance Greene
Summary: You can't see her in the darkness. — ZexionAerith


Note.;;

This is the product of a write off ( random pairings matched with random lyrics for prompting ) with a friend. It was also timed, therefore it probably isn't as good as it should be.

Takes place in Radiant Garden ( with Ienzo ).

KH is not mine.

**Zexion x Aerith  
**"_Sunbeam stop tugging at me."_

"What a lovely day," Aerith said as she lightly clapped her hands together in appeasement. Ienzo couldn't help but focus in on those soft, pale, and smooth white hands. So delicate; he imagined holding one in his own. Of course, his unworthy scientist hands stained with all sorts of chemicals and scalpel scars ( for Ienzo never much liked to wear gloves – although being an immaculate person, he often carelessly went without them – they were too confining ) would probably never be able to obtain such a prize.

_They probably smell like the flowers she picks, _he mused, daydreaming as the warm sun's rays mollified him through the window.

"Sunny, warm . . ." She continued, without him really hearing. "Ienzo, wake up. It's spring."

He was greeted by a sweetly smiling face before him – he blinked his violet eyes once, twice, in a rapid succession. She giggled softly, pulling the door shut quietly behind her.

"Don't you just want to go out in the meadow?"

"Not . . . necessarily," He replied, and when she stopped in front of him and simply stared at him, waiting for an explanation, he added on hastily: "I have to read this book."

He detected an undertone of sarcasm in her lilt that could have been classified as snarky. "Oh. Ansem's orders, right?"

"Right.—Aerith, what are you d—!" The teenager exclaimed as he was grabbed by the wrist with those slender, long fingers and led out the door and into the sun.

"You can read your 'book' in the meadow, silly," Her voice sung, striding majestically ahead of him. "Besides, do you really call that a _book_? It looks more like a manual to a complex computer they used to have that filled up an entire room," She commented airlessly.

"Actually it is one of those."

"Oh."

Ienzo wrought his eyes in exasperation. He halted in his tracks, causing the girl to stop with him. He stood there facing her and took in a breath. "Look, Aerith. I would really enjoy this, but right now I don't have time. How about . . . er, tomorrow?" He tugged loosely at his shirt collar. Tomorrow he had to get in that report for Ansem . . .

She shook her head impatiently. The glossy curls surrounding her face swayed as she did so, like the wisps of a dandelion head in the breeze. "That just won't do, Ienzo. This is the only time I'm able to get you out of either a cooped-up lab or your stuffy house. You'll have to make time to enjoy this now. So," She added with a light shrug, "stop being crazy."

"Crazy!" He laughed despite himself, it blending with the air and sounding almost youthful. "What are you, then?"

"A person who knows what's good for your health!" She called back over her shoulder playfully, and then launched herself into the meadow. The wind tugged at her skirt, making it flutter behind her. She spread out her arms backwords and with incredible momentum, gracefully appeared to lose it as she leaned forward. "Catch me!"

Ienzo was taken aback for a moment, but not a moment too delayed; he rushed up to her in what seemed like slow-motion to him, reaching out for the falling beauty that was to crash into the flowers any second. So light on her feet she was, that when he touched her waist with one hand he was able to spin her around and catch her, supporting her spare back.

Aerith was laughing cheerfully with her eyes closed, like chiming bells, and her hair was a whirlpool around her face. "I didn't think you would."

He panted for breath, alarmed at her sudden daredevil escapades. "Of course I would have."

The sun that was previously beating down on his dark-clothed back dwindled down noticeably; he began to feel cold. After casting one last lingering and wistful look at her face, he wrenched his eyes away and looked towards the sky. Grey clouds were invading the heavens, darkening it. He could've sworn there was thunder off in the distance, and maybe saw lightning out of the corner of his eye.

He reluctantly let Aerith go; she was already straightening up and watching the sky studiously.

"What is it, Ienzo?" She murmured, entranced. Her green eyes focused, brows pinched together delicately in thought and concentration as she strained to hear.

"I'm not sure."

There was a crash. Aerith let out a startled little yell, her hand flying to cover her mouth. Ienzo whipped around just in time to see a row of saplings collapse, bent at the middle, crushing the tall grass and wildflowers beneath their full branches. Behind them were several dark shapes, shadows that moved without a solid object to produce them. Yellow pool-like orbs glowed fiercely in their heads.

She shrieked again beside him, protecting the top of her head with her arms as another tree – larger, this time – crashed right by them. He could feel the wind rush past him just as he reached for her arm.

"Move!" They leapt through the field, the grass stalks whipping around their legs and brambles cutting into their clothes. He couldn't smell the pollen they were disturbing as they ran; just the scent of darkness.

He jumped over a hurdle, a fallen tree that hid a ditch in the ground, and led Aerith around it. They ducked behind it and huddled there, shaking.

"Are they—"

"Don't look back; I will. Keep your head down and don't make a sound." _And be good for me._

Aerith obeyed docilely in her fear. Ienzo took the time to glance around the tree's gnarled roots, seeing a horrible sight: the figures approaching at a rapid pace. They seemed to multiply in their incorporeal shapes.

_Heartless _. . . ? He wondered, remembering back to what they were studying in Ansem's lab. Xehanort, one of his accomplices, kept on going on about them . . . he described them in detail, with a fascinated voice every time.

_Damn him, _He thought sourly, turning back to Aerith.

"We've got to keep on going."

"Too late," She muttered.

"What?"

"It's too late." Melancholy; despair; enigma.

It was. Darkness seeped above them over their heads, causing shivers to wrack her shoulders and body. Ienzo hissed, but did not give up yet. He forced himself upwards with all the strength he could muster and attempted to strangle one of the monsters – all he gripped was icy air, and instead a hand slid around his wrist.

He nearly roared in outrage. He felt Aerith take his other wrist, tugging at it helplessly: a matter he could not attend to right now. Her touch was cool, a stilled sunbeam from previously.

And then he felt himself being dragged upwards, and them being pulled apart.

"Aerith!"

He yelled.

"Aerith . . . !"

There was no reply. There was only the sense of suffocating darkness and being swallowed by it.

---

He wandered in it for a very long time.

---

There was no time in the realm of darkness.

Everything was nothing.

And darkness was eternal.

But there was once, for a fleeting moment, consciousness.

---

_What?_

Light?

_Aerith . . . ?_


End file.
